as, let alone his emotion
appreciate them.

"The consequence is, that I can't bring myself to use these words
except in societies where I know I shall not be misunderstood.

"Influence, the indestructibility of matter, aspiration--those are
what Grace, the Resurrection of the Body, the Holy Spirit mean to me
now; great and living and integral parts of my creed, which I not
only glow to reflect about, but which surround and penetrate my life
daily and hourly with ever-increasing thankfulness.

"Yet, on the other hand, some people depend so much on tradition:
they never have a reconstruction of ideas; memories and associations
are all in all to them. They are the 'Bands' people of my former
classification.

"And so I want to give Edward both. I take him to church. When he
asks me questions I will answer them, but I am glad to say he does
not at present. I send him out before the sermon: that is responsible
for a good deal of harm. 'Ye shall call upon him to avoid sermons'
should be in the rubric of _my_ baptismal service.

"Then we read some of the Old Testament history as 'history of the
Jews,' and Job and Isaiah and the Psalms as poetry--and I am glad to
say he is very fond of them; and parts of the Gospels in Greek, as
the life and character of a hero. It is the greatest mistake to
impose them upon children as authoritative and divine all at once. It
at once diminishes their interest: we ought to work slowly up through
the human side.

"The Pauline Epistles I have given him to read in extracts. I believe
they are best in extracts--one can omit the controversial element.
And he has taken, as children do, to the Revelation enormously, and
gets much mysterious delight from it.

"A long and wearisome letter this, and not, I feel, satisfactory. I
haven't done justice to the side of tradition, the _jussum et
traditum_, but that is the fault of my mind. I have only been
professing to represent the other side.

"I would like to thrash the matter out further. I wish you would come
down and see us. Tredennis has a sombre beauty, even in winter--a
'season of mists' with us. The magnolia on the south wall is
blooming, though we are only two days off Christmas. Our love to you.

"Arthur Hamilton."

I subjoin another extract, on the education of the moral faculty.

"I have always held that the concentration of thought upon morality
is a very dangerous system of life. Morality should be an incidental
basis to lif